TALLADEGA, Ala.—Jeff Gordon acknowledged that it’s been a long time since racing at Talladega Superspeedway has been fun for him.

Yet he had reason to smile following a runnerup finish to Matt Kenseth in Sunday's Good Sam 500. A few reasons, actually.

Gordon escaped the late carnage that has become all but inevitable on the 2.66-mile track. He recorded his third consecutive top-five finish. He climbed four spots in the standings to sixth, keeping his hopes alive for a fifth Sprint Cup championship with six races remaining in the Chase.

“It is certainly not over yet,” Gordon said. “So we'll see what happens. If we keep doing this, I really think we might have a shot at it.”

Despite the string of top-five finishes—Gordon finished third at New Hampshire and second last week at Dover—he still trails series leader Brad Keselowski by 42 points.

If not for a stuck throttle and subsequent 35th-place finish in the Chase opener at Chicago, Keselowski might well be chasing Gordon. That has been the only blemish for the No. 24 team in the last seven weeks dating to Bristol.

In the three events heading into the Chase, Gordon reeled off finishes of third (Bristol), second (Atlanta) and second (Richmond). Following the Chicago fiasco, he’s mirrored those exact finishes the past three weeks.

“We can sit there and really get mad about what happened in Chicago, but the reality of it is all we can do is go each and every week and keep trying to put ourselves in position to win and get top-fives,” Gordon said.

Gordon survived the Big One—unlike 24 drivers entangled in the harrowing last-lap wreck—but so did Keselowski (seventh place). The frustrating nature of competition at Talladega mitigated some of Gordon’s good feelings on the day.

“I remember when coming to Talladega was fun,” he said. “I really do, and I haven't experienced that in a long, long time. I don't like coming here. I don't like the type of racing that I have to do.”

Despite avoiding the multicar crash that has become Talladega’s cachet for 188 of 189 laps, Gordon knew it was coming at the finish.

“At the end, you know it's going to get aggressive,” he said. “It started to ramp up, so you're pretty sure there's going to be a caution, and then with the green-white-checkered, you know you're not making it back to the checkered.

“You wonder if you'll make it to the white (flag). You know you're not going to make it back to the checkered without there being a wreck.”